Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments. Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

Yep. And I grew up riding around standing up in the front seat of a Ford station wagon as did many of my peers. If parents are careful and drive a safe speed, they don't die in car accidents.

As Sparta said to Philip of Macedon, "If."

I'm sure in your perfect world, all parents would raise healthy children in ideal environments, and nobody would be exposed to nasty viruses, and they would all be unvaccinated and not need herd immunity. And indeed they would not, until the day which would inevitably come, sooner or later, when they would come into contact with someone who had a case of measles or mumps or polio which your community was not vaccinated against; and then it would rip through you like a wildfire through the drought-stricken Southwest.

This idea that nobody needs to vaccinate their kids because so few people get crowd diseases any more, and that herd immunity isn't necessary any longer, kind of overlooks two very important factors in our global society: No disease except smallpox has been eradicated, so they all still exist; and we are, in fact, a global society. Your unvaccinated, top-of-the-chart healthy, breast-fed child is only safe from crowd diseases in the US because so few people IN AMERICA don't have them. That is not true of anyplace else in the world. So a person from Thailand gets off the plane in Seattle at the same time as your healthy kid is flying to Los Angeles to start college, and guess what? Now she's got measles that she wouldn't have been at risk for if only she'd been vaccinated.

Sure, she's got a good chance of complete recovery, since she's still in America--but she didn't need to get measles AT ALL, now, did she? Enough people like this, and we have a measles epidemic. Which I suppose is fine with people who think it won't happen to them or their healthy kids, because nobody dies of measles anymore, right?

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

QFT. I knew a kid growing up who caught measles at the age of four (this was in 1982, so somewhat unusual, but his parents were Steiner followers) -- he didn't die, but he was permanently and severely brain damaged by encephalitis. Ten years later, he still couldn't speak. And yes, anti-vaxxers' children will suffer the most, but they'll have a lot of incidental victims as well -- people who are immunocompromised, who are allergic to vaccine components, too young for vaccination, or whose vaccine simply didn't take, because once in a while a vax just won't work and the recipient ends up relying on herd immunity.

DrewCurtisJr:ladyfortuna: I'm starting to think that when I meet new people I should ask them if they are vaccinated against the usual, and if they say no, I'll just tell them to call me when they are.

How much confidence do you have in a "yes" answer? How many adults are aware of what vaccines they received as children and what boosters they might need?

Um, they SHOULD be aware. I couldn't get a job in a healthcare office without proving I had them. My mom kept a full immunization record for me and has it in my baby book.

It's like adults who don't know what their blood type is. How do you NOT know? Go donate blood once and they'll tell you.

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier:The secret is to call the anti-vaccine peoples' bluff: Invent a vaccine for autism.

Well, that's what all this nonsense is about, of course. If there is a discrete, actual cause of autism, then there is a discrete, actual cure. If autism is "caused" by, say, thimerosol in vaccines, then take it out and viola! No more autism! And parents can comfort themselves with the knowledge that no parent will ever again suffer as they have suffered. And when that didn't pan out---why, it must be the vaccines themselves! Get rid of vaccines and viola! No more autism! And parents can, etc.

Parents of children with autism, like any chronic neurological disorder, want desperately to believe there is a) a solid, physical reason for what caused their child's problem, because that would mean b) there is at least hope for a cure. Or at least ending the curse of autism. So they latch on to anything that offers that hope. The fact that fewer kids are getting vaccinated--and some unvaccinated kids are still turning up with autism--and the autism rate is still going up--means NOTHING to people who want to believe. They'll rationalize anything if it means hope of a cure. Only when everyone on the planet has never been vaccinated and we still have autism will these poor fools accept that it was something else.

Then there are antivaxxers like our own dear Abbey, who are also anti-Big Pharma and want to believe that a healthy wholesome lifestyle will keep the evil germs away. That's just today's gloss on the old back-to-nature movement I grew up with that if you ate raw food and drank raw milk and wore raw fibers you'd never get sick. These folks are a Bible page away from the Christian Scientists who want to pray the bad away. I should probably just start ducking the brickbats that should begin flying any second now, but it's all the same fear of science and faith in anything that's not "unnatural," really.

sweet-daddy-2:Thanks to all the responders to my question. Even the ones who seemed to miss my statement of believing in vaccinations. ladyfortuna was the most gracious. To the others: I have believed for many years in seatbelts, sober operators, lifejackets, and other safety measures.....including quick, deadly, armed response to those who walk on my lawn.

Those of you that haven't worked in an emergency room could be quick to use your anecdotal non-occurences as proof that bad things don't happen to people. Why wear seat belts? Why get vaccines? Etc.

But that's idiocracy. Talk to us who've seen people go through their windshields, or have heard the flip side: "if those air bags hadn't gone off I'd be dead." Likewise, sit for a few years with the pediatricians who see the kids permanently brain damaged by their parents' intent to ignore science in favor of defiance and revolution and "self-expression."

You know, you can skip your medicines and your self-care when you're an adult. But when you make your children intentionally defenseless in the face of preventable horribleness, it's no different than running up to the car before they leave and unbuckling their seat belt.

"What? Plenty of people ride fine without belts and I didn't wear a belt when younger. Therefore..."

I was vaccinated and still got measles. It's quite rare but not unheard of, and I would happily kick up the arse any parent who didn't have measles themselves (because their parents weren't idiots) and chooses not to vaccinate their child. I remember the utterly terrifying day when I couldn't see properly. It righted itself, but scary for an 8 year old.

I don't think anyone at my school wasn't vaccinated, it's just something that everyone got via the NHS and measles and mumps were rare. Our GP thought I may have been infected in hospital as there were a few kids from outside Europe in the children's ward when I was there and they probably weren't vaccinated. Herd immunity is really important.

leadmetal:As opposed to the children and people who get crippling neurological disabilities or killed due to the vaccines?

And what are the children that have this happen to them again? Oh, wait. You mean Hanna Pooling, don't you, who was killed after a vaccine reaction which exacerbated an underlying and as-yet unknown genetic mitochondrial disorder that would have killed her anyway?

Or are you talking about the 1:1,000,000 chance of suffering a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine among the general population?

Or are you talking about the now absolutely, utterly, and repeatedly disproven link between vaccines and developmental disorders, mercury poisoning, and other issues which are repeated ad nauseum?

leadmetal:Not to mention cancers (SV40, Polio vaccine) and other problems due manufacturing mistakes (usually seen in the third world causing reproductive issues)

Do you have links to scientific research which links SV40 or the Polio vaccine to cancer? Or links "manufacturing mistakes" to "reproductive issues"?

leadmetal:I mention this because people use rare events to justify vaccination but disregard equally, more, or less rare events due to vaccination. People pretend vaccination is risk free and that's just plain wrong.

Uh, life-long disability and death from vaccine-preventable diseases are far more common than adverse, life-threatening reactions of vaccines. And no one pretends that "vaccination is risk free", period. No drug, or biologically active substance has no risk. The key here is informed choice, not fear-mongering. Your child is far more likely to suffer or die from a VPD than they are from the side effects of that vaccine. In addition, some vaccinations, like HPV, will prevent that suffering and slow death far, far from the point it is given.

leadmetal:government took over liability of vaccines and uses its power to tell people harmed 'tough shiat')

leadmetal:Furthermore vaccines are seen as a tool to do social engineering. (Listen to Bill Gates on population control if you don't believe it)

leadmetal:The UK could have avoided much of this by allowing the individual vaccines on the market. But government hates choice. It's their way or else or their way or the highway. Some people chose the highway in this matter, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have chosen something different had there been free choice in the market.

Why, exactly? So children can unnecessarily suffer through additional needle jabs, pain, and anxiety? Oh, and a greatly increased cost. Andrew Wakefield anufactured a disease, and manufactured the evidence for that disease not only to bring his own single vaccine to the market, but to create the evidence that solicitors paid him for to sue vaccine manufacturers. The UK allowed itsself to be swept up in a panic without asking hard questions and looking at research which could not even replicate Wakefield's studies.

leadmetal:Too bad we can't have a market which would push towards ever safer, less toxic, better made, and more effective vaccines and other methods of disease prevention.

Or it COULD be the fact that you're touting all these talking points indicate that not only do you have no idea what you're talking about, but you've bought into anti-vaccination talking points made by people who can't even understand basic tenants of pathology and toxicology.

sweet-daddy-2:There were no MMR vaccines when I was a kid. We hard barely gotten the polio vaccine when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

Our pediatrician's office won't see kids whose parents refuse to vaccinate them- and that's one of the reason I like them so much. They also have two waiting rooms- a well room and a sick room- so it helps keeps the kids just coming for their check-ups from getting sick during flu season. People just get dumb about their kids and suddenly think that they are smarter than scientists and doctors- and so many young parents today have never seen the consequences of these diseases, so they think the measles or mumps are like a bad cold. Both of my kids got their shots on Tuesday, and I'd rather deal with a day of discomfort than weeks of illness.

You know, there are too many people in the country, and there needs to be some way of lessening the burden on our finite resources. I used to think that we should SAVE EVERYONE but now I realize the it might just be OK to let some people go.

brimed03:What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

He had his medical license revoked for that paper and everyone involved repudiated it. That's probably the right response.

The problem with that is that if the virus gets into someone who's unvaccinated and mutates into a form that can bypass the immunity given by the vaccine we're all going to get spotty and possibly dead.

The other problem is there are genuine people, such as the immuno-compromised, that can't receive the vaccine. These people rely on folks with hardier immune systems to be vaccinated so they have less of a chance of acting as carriers of the disease even if they don't progress to having actual symptoms.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.